OKI's innovative new Flatrate printing package, for example, offers a fixed monthly cost with fully inclusive print/copy volumes and visible fixed costs per page for additional pages, helping schools achieve predictable budgeting and cost control.
Of course, making a cost-effective printer acquisition is as much about the type of printer chosen as the payment method. With tight budgetary restrictions, schools cannot afford to buy just ‘any old printing solution' - they need to buy the right one - one that is precisely tailored to their needs and that delivers the flexibility and versatility to meet their full range of printing requirements.
After all, the overall cost-effectiveness of any printer is as much about the value it brings as the expense it incurs. Printers can add value simply by enabling schools to customise their documents more easily. Here, flexibility is the key.
At OKI, we have pioneered the development of free ‘in-the-box' utilities, which enable schools and colleges to customise material. This type of software can have a multitude of applications within schools. It can help, for example, to manage regular events such as sports days and parents evenings by providing the ability to produce colourful signage, tickets and brochures in-house.
In addition, it can support teachers in their lesson preparation by enabling them to create and modify templates for frequently required documents including presentation boards, posters, banners, wristbands, stickers and labels on a broad range of different sizes and types of paper.
The ability of schools to use this approach to tailor material to their precise needs also reduces wastage by enabling more print jobs to be brought in-house, by reducing the over-runs typical of outsourced printing and by raising the level of print-outs that are ‘right first time'.
Schools can use integrated print management software to help further reduce wastage and control costs. This type of solution gives administrators a ‘helicopter view' of their printing resources, enabling them to see who is printing what around the school. They can identify, for example, where colour is being used unnecessarily, or if a printer is being used for purposes unrelated to the school, enabling them to achieve significant savings on the overall print budget.
In summary, there are a broad range of choices schools can make and techniques they can adopt in order to optimise their print resources. At the same time, they get the added benefit of knowing that by helping to cut costs and conserve resources, these techniques all play a key role in limiting the impact of printing processes on the environment.
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